Deportations of Central Americans increasing on U.S. southern border

Central American consulates in Arizona have registered an increase in the number of immigrants they are interviewing before they are deported along the southern U.S. border, where the migration flow has shifted from the Grand Canyon State to Texas.

Because of this situation, many detainees along the southern border of Texas are being transported to detention centers in Arizona and New Mexico.

According to Border Patrol reports, the flow of migrants has dropped off considerably in Arizona but increased in South Texas, where hundreds of desperate people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, as well as Mexico and other Latin American countries, are trying to illegally cross the frontier seeking better economic opportunities in the United States.

"In the last month-and-a-half we've had quite a lot of people to interview who are being returned due to migration who have been detained in Texas. Just this week, I interviewed more than 40 people who were detained in McAllen (Texas)," Salvadoran consul in Tucson Luzmila Aguirre told Efe.

So far during this fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2013, 97,386 immigrants have been detained on the Texas border, while in Arizona the figure is 52,360, according to Border Patrol statistics.

Each month, 200 Salvadorans are being deported from Arizona, Aguirre said.

Meanwhile, the 18,493 Guatemalans deported so far during 2014 represents a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2013, Guatemala's consul in Phoenix, Jimena Diaz, said.

She said that she and her colleagues are interviewing Guatemalans sent from El Paso, Texas.

"What we're seeing in Texas is that many minors and mothers with children are crossing," Diaz said. EFE